Labour continues to show their rank hypocrisy when it comes to gambling.

They constantly bang on about SkyCity as if they are evil incarnate, but happily run raffles, attend racing events and show a general preference to all other forms of gambling other than pokies inside a casino in the nation’s largest city.

Here is Grant Robertson and Andrew Little making complete dorks of themselves at the Wellington Cup.

Congrats to Grant Robertson for managing to make Andrew Little look like a sinister back stabbing weirdoÂ when everyone knows that it is Robbo who is the back stabber.

This is a bit like the Medlab debacle. Â Repeat after me: “you can not get a court to overturn a governmentÂ fundingÂ decision”.

Problem Gambling Foundation will this week take legal action to stop the Ministry of Health dumping it in favour of the Salvation Army.

The move comes as papers released under the Official Information Act show the PGF and the ministry embroiled in a long-running argument over the foundation’s right to speak out on gambling issues.

It includes the ministry threatening to terminate the foundation’s contract if PGF didn’t halt a campaign called “pokie free and proud of it” promoting pokie-free pubs. The PGF has engaged Wellington lawyer Mai Chen to act for it.

It will try to force a delay to the scheduled July 1 handover to the Salvation Army. PGF chief executive Graeme Ramsey said: “We don’t understand the decision. Mai Chen’s first reaction was that it didn’t look right. Now she’s investigated it, it doesn’t smell right either.” Read more »

The over the top reaction to their loss of funding is the perfect demonstration of why the Problem Gambling Foundation should lose its funding. They ahve proved themselves to be a bunch of vicious lefty thugs thinking they can bully sympathy out of people.

I see the Asian unit can continue which I believe is a Richard Northey creation which should allow him keep his snout firmly in the trough.

The Ministry of Health had several meetings with the Problem Gambling Foundation to address concerns about political lobbying after complaints by poker machine trusts about outspoken attacks on the sector, the Sunday Star-Times has been told.

A senior industry source said pokie trusts had lodged several complaints with the ministry about PGF’s behaviour, resulting in the foundation’s chief executive, Graeme Ramsey, being called to “please explain” meetings.Â Read more »

Nearly 100 children were found wandering by themselves in SkyCity last year, show new statistics which anti-gambling advocates say prove problem gambling is a growing issue.

In most cases, the adults responsible for the children were found in the main gaming floor on pokie machines or at a table game.

Figures released by the Department of Internal Affairs under the Official Information Act show there were 64 incidents of “unattended children” last year, involving 96 children. In 2009, just 19 such incidents were recorded.

Just over half the children were aged between 10 and 14, with one-third between the ages of six and nine. The rest were younger than 4.

The police were called in some cases, including when a couple left five children locked in a van in the basement carpark for 45 minutes while they gambled.Â Read more »

“I object to the deal because, frankly, it’s building a convention centre on the backs of problem gamblers. It’s ultimately pulling money out of people’s pockets because they’re gambling and putting it into a convention centre. I think we could be above that in New Zealand.”

Does he know where local sports clubs and community groups get their funding from?Â Read more »

The Greens are wanting a “crackdown” on illicit casino profits, whatever they are?

The Green Party has drafted a bill that would require casinos to pay back proceeds received through criminal activity.

The Bill will amend the Criminal Proceeds of Crime (Recovery) Amendment Act to impose a special obligation on casinos to return profits derived from significant criminal activity, and which they should have detected.

Green Party gambling spokeswoman Denise Roche said problem gamblers were targeted under the existing law but the casino would not suffer.

“When problem gamblers are convicted of stealing from their employers, or laundering drug money through the casino, everyone suffers except the casino, who pockets the profits.”

“The addict is jailed, and loses their job, their family and friends. Their employer can be ruined. But the casino is better off as a result of the crime. That’s not fair,” said Ms Roche.

It is the duty of this House to legislate with a strong sense of justice, as opposed to a strong sense of populism or vengeance, or a misguided commitment to policies that fail to deter crime. Therefore, the Green Party will be voting against the legislation.

There is something just a bit bizarre in this loony Green claim to now beÂ concernedÂ about theÂ proceedsÂ of crime.

I spent most of the past week up in Auckland on a Business and Parliament Trust placement at Sky City. The placements are a great opportunity for MPs from all parties to spend some time in a large company learning more about their business and the business environment in general. I chose Sky City for a variety of reasons, including my role as Labourâ€™s spokesperson on gambling issues. I was also interested in the hospitality and conventions side of their business.

…

I found my week at Sky City an incredibly valuable one and Iâ€™d highly recommend a business placement to any MPs who havenâ€™t already done one. I certainly hope to do another one in future years.

Interestingly Moana Mackey also spent time at SkyCity. Chris Hipkins was also full of praise for SkyCity in the newsletter of the Trust:

â€śWell worthwhile. A valuable opportunity to discuss a range of Â business issues particularly in such a Â highly regulated industry.

Iâ€™m keen to do another one next year!â€ť

You can also see Chippyâ€™s contribution to the debate on the Gambling Amendment bill. Â You will note that he puts aside casino pokie gambling:

It is useful to inject some more facts into the debate at this particular point. The gambling industryâ€™s turnover, as I noted, was a little over $14 billion in 2007, and money lost was just over $2 billion, of which about $950 million was lost on non-casino pokie machines. That is a very significant amount of money. I am told that the money collected from non-casino pokie machines is roughly the equivalent of the entire operating cost of the New Zealand Police. Up to 42 percent of the revenue from pokie machines is from problem gamblersâ€”people who have been identified as having a problem. They make up around 3 percent of gamblers, so a small number of people are gambling a very large sum of money through these pokie machines. Six major societies distribute around 60 percent of all non-casino expenditure funding to community organisations and each pokie-machine grant is approximately $2,438. There were 1,537 gambling venues and nearly 20,000 pokie machines in New Zealand as at December last year. Every day, $2.7 million is lost on non-casino pokie machines.

So Chris Hipkins, in speaking on a bill, was saying that non-casino pokie machines are far worse for society, and yet they now oppose the consolidation of pokie machines in SkyCity, essentially removing 500 machines from the community.

This debate took place on 5 May 2009.Â His week long attachment to Sky City as part of the Business Parliamentary Trust took didnâ€™t take place until 3 Oct 2009, however he “chose” Sky City in May 2009.

Chris Hipkins looks like he has been an able and loyal servant of SkyCity. I wonder how many times Sky City also hosted him in their corporate box for the rugby, basketball or any other corporate function?